Expenses on hotels and hospitality

IPSA holds the information that you request.

Members of Parliament are permitted, under the MPs’ Scheme of Business Costs and Expenses (‘the Scheme’), to claim for expenses legitimately incurred whilst carrying out their parliamentary duties and are required to certify that this is the case before submitting claims.  This may include any food or drink costs incurred for the purpose of hospitality, or overnight accommodation at a hotel, up to a maximum cost of £150 per night in the London Area, or £120 elsewhere in the United Kingdom. 

You may be aware that IPSA publishes details of all claims for business costs and expenses on our website every two months, three months in arrears.  The most recent publication took place on 9 January 2014, which relates to claims made between August and September 2013.  Using the search function, you can download details of all claims made for hospitality purposes, which may provide you with some of the information you are seeking. 

The FOIA states that information that is accessible by other means is not subject to release. Therefore, as the information you have requested is already available on our website, it is exempt from disclosure under section 21 of the FOIA (information accessible to applicant by other means).

Section 22(1) of the FOIA states that information intended for future publication is exempt from release.

We have considered whether the public interest in releasing the information outweighs the application of the exemption. It is our opinion that the public interest is best served by publishing a full list rather than on an ad hoc basis, as in this way a clear and complete set of information is published, avoiding any potential confusion. It is for this reason that the application of the exemption outweighs the public interest in disclosure at this stage.